Gupta was a high caste Hindu, and had been taught to trust in Lord Krishna.
One day when he went to his grandmother’s guru, or spiritual teacher, for help, the guru told him to read the Bhagavad-Gita, or Book of books faithfully every day for six months, and then I will examine you. If you are worthy, I will be your guru.”
Gupta read every day because his soul had been tormented by fear of dying and of going to hell. He read aloud to the staff and customers of his father’s business.
“Six months will pass quickly,” he told himself, “and then I’ll be a follower of this great guru, and my salvation will be assured.”
Then one morning while reading aloud, others were standing around and a sentence of chapter 4 of the Gita smashed all his hopes of ever being delivered from sin, darkness and fear. The sentence read: “Lord Krishna came to save the righteous and to condemn the sisters.”
Gupta closed the book with a feeling of utter despair. His doom was sealed. He thought that Lord Krishna was the kindest, the closest to man of all the gods, who came to show men the way of salvation... but he had come to save only the righteous and to condemn the sisters!
“No salvation for sinners?” said Gupta. “Then there’s no salvation for me.”
While he was in this state of deep despair, he heard an open air gospel preacher, accompanied by several of the lower caste, read from the Christian New Testament. Holding the book up so all could see, the preacher said that it was the revelation of the true and only God, the Creator, and that it told the way of salvation.
A great conflict now raged in Gupta’s mind, and he got a copy of the New Testament for himself. For fear of his family, he read it in secret. Then one day he came across the verse in Hebrews 8:1212For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 8:12): “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,” he read, “and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”
Something inside him said, “Yes, I’ll believe that. God can forgive me because Jesus died for my sins.”
Suddenly the fear of dying and hell left him. The words “no more” in the text convinced him that it had been settled forever and that he had found the salvation he had been seeking.
Gupta had found Christ, the Saviour and Friend, who would be with him all through life and had prepared a home for him in heaven when that life down here was fished. He was sorely persecuted and suffered much from his family and friends for Christ.
Gupta was renamed “Paul” after the great Apostle, and became a missionary to his own people. It was His joy to go about testifying that the God of the Bible is truly the One and only God for all mankind, and that the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ is His way to lead men out of darkness into His marvelous light.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
ML-06/26/1977